Creativity in the Era of Social Networking: A Case Study at Tertiary Education in the Greek Context.

Abstract

This paper investigates the utilization of a social network tool in order to promote creativity in higher education. Buddypress was selected as a social network tool and de Bono’s “6 thinking hats” as a creativity strategy. The participants were 17 undergraduate students from a case study in a University in Greece in the field of social sciences. Creativity was defined by Torrance and Ball’s [25] factors and the results were analyzed using authentic assessment and a questionnaire. The findings show that the research process was beneficial to students’ creativity and that social network tools can be utilized successfully with such a focus. These findings should be treated carefully in terms of generalizing them, as they were derived from a case study. This research could be useful to educators and researchers as a pioneering approach in all levels of education.

Keywords Social Networking, Education, Assessment , Questionnaire